The well-respected NYTimes columnist Jane Brody has been around a long, long time, and we here at ACSH often use her column for its worthwhile information for our readers. Today’s piece, More Worries Rise From the Ashes, is in stark contrast to those, unfortunately. And this topic presented her with a great opportunity to do her readers a major service — instead, she offers irresponsible and harmful information about America’s number one problem: smoking.
Her jumping-off point is a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, which updated some assumptions about diseases linked to cigarette smoking, and proceeded to increase the estimated death rate caused by smoking. But whether 360,000 or 480,000 (the latest official CDC estimate of annual smoking-related deaths) or 500,000-plus, the number lost to cigarettes in America each year is clearly a national catastrophe, a public health emergency.
How does Ms. Brody and her American Cancer Society expert, Brian Carter, purport to deal with this issue, given the new tragic toll? First, she acknowledges that warning smokers about the new illnesses and augmented death toll will do little or nothing to convince smokers to quit:
